Environmental activist group Sea Shepherd announced late Monday it is abandoning its annual anti-whaling activities in Antarctic waters, citing increased use of sophisticated technology by Japanese whalers and lackluster support from the Australian government... Watson said that while anti-whaling vessels will not be going into Antarctic waters this year, the group will not be abandoning its goals. "We need to cultivate the resources, the tactics and the ability to significantly shut down the illegal whaling operations of the Japanese whaling fleet," he said.

The anti-whaling organisation Sea Shepherd will not contest the Southern Ocean against Japanese whalers this season, Captain Paul Watson has announced, accusing “hostile governments” in the US, Australia and New Zealand of acting “in league with Japan” against the protest vessel. Sea Shepherd has been obstructing Japanese whaling vessels in the Southern Ocean each year since 2005, but Watson said the cost of sending vessels south, Japan’s increased use of military technology to track them, and new anti-terrorism laws passed specifically to thwart Sea Shepherd’s activities made physically tracking the ships impossible.

Iceland was not amongst the countries invited to take part in a conference on the world’s oceans, due to the continued practice of whale hunting. RÚV reports that the conference – Our Ocean – is hosted by US Secretary of State John Kerry. Many countries around the world have been invited to take part in the two-day conference, where subjects such as pollution and sustainability in our world’s oceans will be discussed. Iceland, despite having sought to participate, has not been invited to take part in the conference, and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs says this because of whale hunting....

Today is 17th June, Iceland’s national day. It is a public holiday and one of the biggest festival days of the year. There are many official and unofficial events in practically every city, town and tiny village across Iceland. A parade featuring a brass band, the scouts and police in ceremonial uniform are widespread; as are speeches by local officials and a reading by Fjallkonan – the mountain woman. The mountain woman wears an ornate version of the Icelandic national costume, with gold trimmings. Symbolically, she is the spirit of the nation. In Reykjavík, the ceremony takes place on Austurvöllur...

Fifty years ago 180,000 whales disappeared from the oceans without a trace, and researchers are still trying to make sense of why. Inside the most irrational environmental crime of the century.In the fall of 1946, a 508-foot ship steamed out of the port of Odessa, Ukraine. In a previous life she was called the Wikinger (“Viking”) and sailed under the German flag, but she had been appropriated by the Soviet Union after the war and renamed the Slava (“Glory”). The Slava was a factory ship, crewed and equipped to separate one whale every 30 minutes into its useful elements, destined...

CANBERRA, Australia (AP) -- The founder of Sea Shepherd left the environmental group's fleet of anti-whaling ships before they docked in Australia on Wednesday, though the government says it has no reason to arrest him at the moment. Three Sea Shepherd ships docked at the southern port of Williamstown after weeks of harassing Japanese whalers in the Antarctic Ocean during the annual whaling season. The Washington state-based organization, which the United States' largest federal court last month labeled "pirates," said [Paul] Watson, a 62-year-old Canadian, had left the fleet before it reached Australia for fear of arrest. His whereabouts have...

The US-based Sea Shepherd group said Paul Watson had left Germany for an "undisclosed location". It is thought the captain, who handed his passport over to German authorities when he was arrested in May, may have exploited the Schengen zone to travel to France or the Low Countries. German authorities detained Captain Watson following a request from Costa Rica. The Central American country claimed that his behaviour during an incident on the high seas in 2002 had threatened the safety of the crew of a Costa Rican fishing vessel. The Sea Shepherd has also been involved in number of violent...

The Sea Shepherd has become increasingly successful in recent years in disrupting the Japanese whaling, last summer forcing Japan's whaling fleet to head home early, and led Japanese whalers to obtain only 17 percent of their whaling quota. Japanese government on Tuesday announced the research whaling program will go ahead later in December, and there are reports that an extra 27 million U.S. dollars worth of security will be added to the whaling fleet.

The International Whaling Commission's (IWC) annual meeting has closed after a tense final day when relations between opposing blocs came close to collapse. Latin American nations attempted to force a vote on a proposal to create a whale sanctuary in the South Atlantic. Pro-whaling countries walked out, but eventually it was decided to shelve any vote until next year's meeting. Earlier in the meeting, governments agreed new regulations designed to prevent "cash for votes" scandals that have plagued the IWC in the past, and passed a resolution censuring the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society for putting safety at risk during its...

An estranged former member of direct action anti-whaling group Sea Shepherd alleges it ordered its own boat to be scuttled to win public sympathy. Peter Bethune was captain of the hi-tech Ady Gil when its bow was shorn off in a collision with a Japanese whaler it was shadowing in January. It sank two days later, but Mr Bethune now alleges he was ordered to scuttle it by Sea Shepherd head Paul Watson. Mr Watson denies the claim - the latest twist in a bitter row between the two. Commentators say the feud threatens to undermine the standing of the...

A former Sea Shepherd activist on Thursday accused the militant conservation group of deliberately sinking one of its own ships as a publicity stunt after a collision with a Japanese whaler. New Zealander Pete Bethune labelled Sea Shepherd's leadership "morally bankrupt" for allegedly ordering the hi-tech trimaran "Ady Gil" to be scuttled after it collided with a Japanese whaler last January in the Southern Ocean. Bethune, the Ady Gil's captain, said Sea Shepherd founder Paul Watson ordered the ship's sinking to "garner sympathy with the public and to create better TV" in the publicity battle against Japan's Antarctic whaling program....

TOKYO — The leader of a U.S.-based anti-whaling organization is now on an international wanted list for allegedly masterminding the group's disruption of Japanese whale hunts in the Antarctic Ocean, Japan's coast guard said Friday. The move — done at Japan's request — signals Tokyo's escalating anger against the Sea Shepherd group, which it accuses of putting whalers' lives at risk during the annual Antarctic hunt. The Canadian founder of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, Paul Watson, 59, has been on the Interpol list since Wednesday, Coast Guard spokesman Shinichiro Tanaka said. He said Watson's whereabouts is unknown. [excerpt]

JAPANESE prosecutors have demanded a two-year prison sentence for Sea Shepherd activist Peter Bethune over an assault charge stemming from his boarding of a Japanese whaling ship in the Southern Ocean. The New Zealander has been detained since his arrest over the boarding in February, during which Japanese prosecutors allege he injured a crewman on board the Shonan Maru 2 by throwing a bottle of rancid butter at him. Prosecutors told Tokyo District Court yesterday that chemical burns to the face of a 24-year-old whaler were "clearly caused by rancid butter fired by the defendant". Bethune, 45, clambered aboard the...

"We've been doing this too long, and now we're going to do it all over again. It's very tiresome," said John Perry, a sculptor who in the 1970s campaigned for a whaling ban with a 110-foot-long humpback whale balloon. Advertisement Perry was among about 120 people at the protest, one of 16 along the California coast targeting a proposal to lift the 1986 commercial whaling moratorium and set legal quotas for Japan, Norway and Iceland, the three nations that still hunt whales. The proposal aims to reduce the number of whales killed over 10 years, but opponents say it would...

Environmentalists, already peeved with the administration’s handling of the Gulf oil spill, are accusing President Obama of breaking his campaign pledge to end the slaughter of whales. The Obama administration is leading an effort within the International Whaling Commission to lift a 24-year international ban on commercial whaling for Japan, Norway and Iceland, the remaining three countries in the 88-member commission that still hunt whales. The administration argues that the new deal will save thousands of whales over the next decade by stopping the three countries from illegally exploiting loopholes in the moratorium. But environmentalists aren't buying it. "That moratorium...

WASHINGTON, June 6 (UPI) -- U.S. President Barack Obama is breaking a campaign promise as his administration backs an effort to lift a 24-year ban on commercial whaling, critics say. Environmentalists, already unhappy with the administration's allegedly lackluster response to the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, say the president is going back on his campaign pledge to end the slaughter of whales, FOX News reported Sunday. The administration is leading a push within the International Whaling Commission to lift the ban on whaling against Japan, Norway and Iceland, the three countries in the commission still hunting whales, FOX News said....

Australia has filed a complaint against Japan at the world court in The Hague to stop Southern Ocean scientific whaling, the International Court of Justice said on Tuesday. In the filing, Australia said Japan was violating the International Convention for the Regulation of Whaling (ICRW) by killing whales for research purposes. Commercial whaling was banned under a 1986 moratorium, but Japan still culls whales for what it says is research.Whaling has been a thorny issue between the two trading partners, though both in the past have vowed not to let it affect their relations, which include growing military and security...

TOKYO — The Japanese Coast Guard has obtained an arrest warrant for the leader of the Sea Shepherd environmental group for its disruption of Japan's annual whale hunts, local media reported Friday. ... The warrant is for Paul Watson, the Canadian founder and president of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, on suspicion of assault and obstruction of business, Kyodo News agency reported, citing investigative sources. It did not say which court issued the warrant. The Japanese Coast Guard wants Watson placed on the wanted list of Interpol, the international police agency, national broadcaster NHK reported.